Idea:Competition by Category

[glorfindel01]

Good morning members of the community of quicksand fans, I am not sure to see in this forum something similar, but, I have a crazy idea: why not make a contest within our community ?, the categories could be within each section of "Member Submissions ", the winners might have custom frames or something, maybe it's a really big idea, but it would be fun to watch

[Duncan Edwards]

Good morning members of the community of quicksand fans, I am not sure to see in this forum something similar, but, I have a crazy idea: why not make a contest within our community ?, the categories could be within each section of "Member Submissions ", the winners might have custom frames or something, maybe it's a really big idea, but it would be fun to watch

Something like that might be fun but here's the problems - Every time somebody has an idea for some time of contest or competition they neglect the details of who is going to run/administer/judge it and who is going to sponsor the prize or honor? Then also you have a more fundamental question of what this place is about to begin with. Is it really that competitive an environment or do we treat all submissions equally?

Anybody want to volunteer?

[sixgunzloaded]

Not sure about the prize sponsor part, but couldn't the winner(s) be picked by simple community vote? The contest itself could run within a stated time frame - say about a month to give folks enough time and opportunity (also, members making submissions would need to announce their submission in a specific 'Contest Submissions' thread to make sure their art gets seen and counted) - then the voting period could begin - say about a week - then the votes tallied and the winner(s) announced.
Some of the Member Submission categories might need subcategories. For instance, in Drawings, a subcategory for 'Hand Drawn' and another for 'Computer Generated' might be appropriate.
Also, there could be a 'One Submission Per Member' limit. That would ensure that no one person could flood the contest with a ton of submissions. And, at the same time, it would encourage people to put their very best effort into their entry.
As far as who runs/administers it, I would suggest that it be someone who already spends a lot of time visiting the board and who enjoys looking at lots of member-submitted stuff.
Personally, I wouldn't think we need to fret too much over the 'competitive environment' question. Plenty of communities have friendly competitions like this and no feelings get hurt as long as everyone acts like adults. And the vote system would ensure entries are treated equally and have a fair shot at winning. Assuming people actually vote, that is.

[Fred588]

Not sure about the prize sponsor part, but couldn't the winner(s) be picked by simple community vote? The contest itself could run within a stated time frame - say about a month to give folks enough time and opportunity (also, members making submissions would need to announce their submission in a specific 'Contest Submissions' thread to make sure their art gets seen and counted) - then the voting period could begin - say about a week - then the votes tallied and the winner(s) announced.
Some of the Member Submission categories might need subcategories. For instance, in Drawings, a subcategory for 'Hand Drawn' and another for 'Computer Generated' might be appropriate.
Also, there could be a 'One Submission Per Member' limit. That would ensure that no one person could flood the contest with a ton of submissions. And, at the same time, it would encourage people to put their very best effort into their entry.
As far as who runs/administers it, I would suggest that it be someone who already spends a lot of time visiting the board and who enjoys looking at lots of member-submitted stuff.
Personally, I wouldn't think we need to fret too much over the 'competitive environment' question. Plenty of communities have friendly competitions like this and no feelings get hurt as long as everyone acts like adults. And the vote system would ensure entries are treated equally and have a fair shot at winning. Assuming people actually vote, that is.

Two points to make:

1) Quite possibly, doing this with the prize being simple recognition might help prevent multiple voting by people with more than one username. Perhaps the winning contribution could be made a sticky for a month or two and labelled in some appropriate fashion.

2) I'd suggest trying to do no more than one competition at a time so as to avoid overloading those who work in more than one format. For example, you could do stories in October, hand drawn art in November, and so on.

[sixgunzloaded]

Two points to make:

1) Quite possibly, doing this with the prize being simple recognition might help prevent multiple voting by people with more than one username. Perhaps the winning contribution could be made a sticky for a month or two and labelled in some appropriate fashion.

2) I'd suggest trying to do no more than one competition at a time so as to avoid overloading those who work in more than one format. For example, you could do stories in October, hand drawn art in November, and so on.

I like those ideas! Plus, the second one would stretch out the fun and give each individual winner a more focused time in the spotlight.

[Fred588]

Two points to make:

1) Quite possibly, doing this with the prize being simple recognition might help prevent multiple voting by people with more than one username. Perhaps the winning contribution could be made a sticky for a month or two and labelled in some appropriate fashion.

2) I'd suggest trying to do no more than one competition at a time so as to avoid overloading those who work in more than one format. For example, you could do stories in October, hand drawn art in November, and so on.

I like those ideas! Plus, the second one would stretch out the fun and give each individual winner a more focused time in the spotlight.

One more suggestion:
I would suggest it would be a bad idea to use the built-in polling system for this if judging is done by members in general. The polling system displays results as those results are received and this, in my opinion, would tend to affect voting by others.

[sixgunzloaded]

One more suggestion:
I would suggest it would be a bad idea to use the built-in polling system for this if judging is done by members in general. The polling system displays results as those results are received and this, in my opinion, would tend to affect voting by others.

I don't know about that. You might be right, but I would certainly hope people would be able to follow their own hearts/minds, whatever, and vote for the ones they like the best. And it's not like there would be a huge prize payout that could end up going to an undeserving winner. Just bragging rights. Besides, what other voting system do we have?

[Fred588]

One more suggestion:
I would suggest it would be a bad idea to use the built-in polling system for this if judging is done by members in general. The polling system displays results as those results are received and this, in my opinion, would tend to affect voting by others.

I don't know about that. You might be right, but I would certainly hope people would be able to follow their own hearts/minds, whatever, and vote for the ones they like the best. And it's not like there would be a huge prize payout that could end up going to an undeserving winner. Just bragging rights. Besides, what other voting system do we have?

Well its only a suggestion. It is, however, a well-documented human behavior (sometimes called the Pygmalion Effect) that a significant proportion of people will go along with what they perceive to be the crowd even when it contradicts common sense or what is obvious. I once did a classroom experiment in which I asked a series of students to feel two boxes and say which was the heavier. Prior to this I arranged that the first three students I asked would give the wrong answer. After that about one in three gave the answer the first three had given. And the difference in weight was not subtle. I repeated this experiment in a particular course for six consecutive semesters and got the same results each time.

[Fred588]

Another suggestion Re: The Categories

Someone, or perhaps several someones over time, needs to decide what the categories might be. Regarding that I would suggest that categories be specific enough that "Apples are compared to Apples" but broad enough that a reasonable number of entries may be expected. One way of defining categories could be by the kind of creative form. Stories, hand-drawn art, and manipulations would be examples of that. Alternatively, some sort of theme might become a category. For example, a category might be "jungle safari," in which case various kinds of drawing, manipulation, and written fiction might compete head to head. Perhaps another might be some well-known movie or TV show, for which entries could be based on. Dukes of Hazard could be a category, for example.